ADAS Benchmarking Hits Market

Automotive chip companies talk about system-on-chips designed for Advanced Driving Assistance Systems all the time.

But how can the rest of us — reporters, analysts and most important, carmakers — tell one ADAS SoC from another?

Truth is, we can’t. The absence of scientific tools and benchmarks leaves little choice but to take the vendor’s word for it. Or we rely on such imperfect measures as trillion operations per second (TOPS) to compare Intel/Mobileye’s EyeQ5 with Nvidia’s Xavier, which is probably a bum steer.

The new tool suite, according to EEMBC, is designed to help tier ones and carmakers to optimize their use of compute resources ranging from CPU to GPU and hardware accelerators when they design their own ADAS systems.

Mike Demler, a senior analyst at The Linley Group, welcomed ADASMark, noting, “It’s good to see that this is not just an abstract performance metric, but they used real workloads.” Demler said that participation from AU-Zone Technologies — a Calgary-based engineering design services company — and chip vendors such as NXP Semiconductors and Texas Instruments made EEMBC's test more meaningful than, for example, Baidu’s generic DeepBench.

FREE SPACE DETECTION BY CAMERA ON REAL WORLD AREAS NEAR PARIS WITH POOR QUALITY OF BITUMEN ON THE ROAD : CRACKS, PATCHES, ...

Some companies try to detect freespace with a regular camera, without IR (SWIR etc …), without fusion with LIDAR, just because it allows low cost applications especially for aftermarket. Here is an example of the NEXYAD module RoadNex. One can see that there are a lot of cracks, patches (highlights and dark zones), and that RoadNex still detects free space in front of the car. Especially useful in the roundabout (see video). Note : It runs on a regular chip (real time on a regular smartphone, for instance). It means that cost of deployment is "cost of software only", NO NEED for a special smart hardware architecture (NVIDIA ...) or a special camera. This is the differentiation of NEXYAD : we do not try to provide "perfect and beautiful" detection (that is already achieved by MOBILEYE for instance, but, we think, beyond market price for markets we target), but rather an efficient quick detection for some valuable functions at market price. Our free space detection is currently under integration into dashcams https://lnkd.in/g_jSeSu

The hard truth on insurance and telematics

Whiplash, staged accidents, Ogden, fronting, ghost broking – you name it, motor insurers have been having a rough time of it. Not only that but they have been getting it, rather ironically, ‘in the neck’ for encouraging a compensation culture in the UK that has seen claims costs spiral and premiums reach record-breaking levels.

While Government reforms are underway to help tackle some of these problems, insurers need to be putting greater investment in getting on the front foot at the claims stage. This will reduce exposure to fraud, help avoid inflated claims costs and ensure claims are managed quickly and simply for the customer.

The sure-fire way to do that is through telematics data. The hard truth is that many major insurers simply aren’t geared up to use telematics data at claims stage.

Given the many and varied challenges facing the sector it is fair to assume that if, as an insurer, you have access to the exact details on the circumstances of a claim, recorded by the car rather than relying purely on the customer’s and/or witness version of events, that intelligence would be ingested and used to help determine the outcome of a claim? You would know where and when the accident happened, the G-force on the car, where the car was hit, whether the car was stationary or moving.

It is also fair to assume that if you know a customer has had an accident, you, as their insurer, will want to be the first to offer help.

These are big assumptions and sadly mistaken ones.

The problem is that while the vast majority of insurers now have some form of telematics proposition, whether through a broker partnership or as a distinct part of their in-house capabilities, it is still seen as a niche part of their business and the benefit is limited to how telematics data is used to rate for risk, not how it is used during the claims process.

What’s the difference between automated driving and ADAS?

The difference between automated driving and ADAS can be boiled down to the level of human intervention. Up to what level are drivers responsible, and from what level can cars help us? It is this threshold that separates between automated driving and ADAS.

The target of ADAS is, needless to say, to increase the scene where collisions are avoidable as much as possible. For example, surveys and classification on actual collisions have been conducted at a lot of developed countries. Those surveys analyze the details of accidents occurred, such as the types of accidents and the numbers of respective cases, how fast the cars were driving, what percentage of accidents were fatal, and so on. We can quantify what percentage of accidents can be prevented if an ADAS function is introduced to vehicles on the road. By continuing that effort, we can achieve the goal of ‘Zero Collisions’. In short, evolution of ADAS can be regarded as the process to eliminate the situations where collisions could occur by introducing various technologies.Read more : https://www.denso.com/global/en/innovation/technology/adas/auto/difference/

Waymo and Tesla, Same Goals Different Paths to Level 5

Waymo and Tesla both have the same goal toward fully L5 driverless self driving cars, but they differ in approach from a design and engineering philosophy. Elon Musk relies on computer vision systems that use a combination of ultrasonic, radar and camera devices. Waymo on the other hand use a very fundamental device among driverless car makers and that is LiDAR. Elon believes Tesla can rely on it’s sophisticated hardware with AI software while Waymo implements LiDAR at the heart of it’s systems. While Uber has tarnished the image of self driving cars recently, Waymo and Tesla are way more advanced and have a better track record. Unfortunately Uber doesn’t and it also affected their relationship with Volvo for providing them the XC90, a great SUV. The other important part of making self driving cars more successful is the data gathered from road tests.

The Hottest Tech Trends in 2019? Watch out for Smart Transportation, Smart Retail, and Smart Industry driven by Edge AI

Smart Transportation

Will this be the year that smart transportation finally takes off? As an ongoing trend, smart transportation, which encompasses everything from autonomous urban buses, trams, trains, through to the increasing volume of smart fleet and private vehicles on the roads, is very much on the rise.

In many ways smart transportation is the perfect storm, bringing together convenience for end users, lower costs for operators and often wrapping in regulatory compliance for good measure. The technology is also fast maturing, from onboard enhanced AI offerings capable of maintaining vital safety margins, through to rapidly shrinking sensors. Consider that the first practical LIDAR units were roof-mounted crates; now they’re the size of a matchbox.

VIA’s compact Mobile360 M820 ADAS system is integrated into one of the world’s first autonomous electric buses; the Enchi Self-Driving EV Bus, which was demonstrated in April 2018. The Edge AI ADAS cameras, in this instance, deliver vital safety measures including Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, and Speed Limit Detection features.

futuristic AR to your bike helmet with the Argon Transform

Motorbike riders have been clamoring for an augmented reality (AR) enabled bike helmet for years, hence the long-running and infamous Skully debacle. But now Singapore-based startup Whyre have come up with a simple way to make any bike helmet smart, using an attachment which can overlay AR information on a helmet’s visor. They showed off the Argon Transform, as its known, at CES 2019 this year.

The Argon Transform is a dual-camera system which works by sticking one camera to the back of a helmet and one to the front. The front piece acts as a high definition dash cam with a black box recording feature, and has a simple mounting system that should work with any helmet. The back piece holds a rechargeable battery which the manufacturers estimate should last for five hours of use, plus a dedicated high speed computing board, a high definition wide-angle lens camera, Bluetooth integration, expandable memory, and an audio and microphone system.

Road Safety for Cyclists and Motorists - The Ultimate Online Guide

Few subjects cause more tension than the relationship between drivers and cyclists on our roads. It is not an easy partnership, and there will always be some level of animosity between two and four wheeled road users. However whether you’re a driver, cyclist or both, one thing we do need to be on the same page about is SAFETY.

ROSPA provides the statistics on collisions involving cyclists below:

• Around 75% of fatal or serious cyclist accidents occur in urban areas• Around half of cyclist fatalities occur on rural roads• 75% happen at, or near, a road junction• 80% occur in daylight• 80% of cyclist casualties are male• Almost one quarter of the cyclists killed or injured are children• Around three quarters of cyclists killed have major head injuries.

These stats highlight the need for improved road safety awareness for all users, in order to reduce the level of accidents on our roads.

Groupement ADAS is a Team of innovative companies with over 20 years experience in the field of technologies used in assistance driver systems (design, implementation and integration of ADAS in vehicles for safety features, driver assistance, partial delegation to the autonomous vehicle).